My readers know that I favor transparency; it’s a moral element in Creation. It’s not for the brain to discern, though it may do so, but it’s first and foremost something for the heart to see. The phrase “Open Source” captures the essence.
So you have probably read plenty here about Open Source software because that’s what I use most. For example, you would think my laptop — designed to run Windows Vista — would work better with Windows, but it doesn’t. Believe me, I’ve tried both Vista and Win7 and it’s about as unstable as a raft at sea. I believe I’m pretty competent at researching the problems and there are no fixes because Microsoft won’t fix some things. And yet, Linux (some distributions of it) work just fine and the machine is stable, so I know it’s not the hardware.
Yet even Linux seems to be taking the wrong path on some things, by making it harder and harder for us ordinary folks to fix things in the kernel. Recent Linux OSes have offered a regression on this laptop, with suspend and resume not working correctly. Older stuff still works fine (prior to Linux kernel 4.0), but anything recent chokes on the hardware — older hardware that has been working well with Linux all along.
I’m thinking about switching over the BSD, something I played with an awful lot a decade ago. My point here is that Linux development has taken a turn in the path that takes too much control away from the user, and steadily grows worse about it (it’s all about a thing called “systemd”). I love it when elegant packaging makes fiddling unnecessary, but if the elegance excludes my hardware, I would prefer something that gives fiddling as a strong option, with guidance I can use — Linux is slowly taking that away. And the few distributions of Linux that don’t use systemd are wholly inelegant, designed for servers.
If I’m going to go the fiddling route, I think I would prefer something with a lot more options, something runs quick and light on the hardware, and that’s where BSD shines. It probably won’t be something I do right away, but it’s an idea whose light shines ever brighter in the gathering gloom over the computer technology landscape. I don’t like technology that enslaves the user.
We do the same with our religion here. Radix Fidem [PDF] is a DIY outline, an Open Source approach to religion. We try to make it elegant, to give it coherence so that you aren’t left starting totally from scratch, but we don’t foreclose a large number of decisions you can and should make for yourself.
We claim that our path will open up the fundamental essence of Creation as a reflection of God’s own moral character, which is what revelation is all about. But revelation is person-to-person, between you and God, not with some human high priest who seeks to restrict what you see and hear. Ours is a meta-religion; it’s an expression of faith that teaches you to construct your own religion. All we actually do is help you get your intellect out of the way, making it subservient to some higher faculty we all receive as a gift from God.
This is something you have to learn from the heart, and cerebral results as organization and implementation are between you and God. While this blog is currently the focus of this effort, it’s only because no one is doing it. Right now it’s almost totally virtual. I know how to lead a group of humans in meat-space, but I also know how to serve when leading isn’t possible. All of my fumbling around with technology is meant to save trouble; I share my explorations so you won’t have to reinvent your own wheel. I’ve also done a considerable amount of fumbling around religion in various types of clergy roles and I’m sharing the results of that miserable experience so you can avoid the misery.
The biblical cultural ideal is the shepherd. I’ll get you close enough to the pasture that you can find your own food; I’ll make the water lie still so you can drink; I’ll do what I can to keep the predators off of you. But I can’t produce sheep for you. That’s your mission. When you build up your faith into good moral action, it always bears fruit.
And as a prophet I will warn you that we are in a time of rising chaos. On the one hand, everyone is searching for an anchor in the storm. On the other hand, precious few will recognize what we have is that anchor, at least initially. We must remain resolute in the face of false appearances because the storm cannot really harm anything essential. What it destroys was not worth having. It’s time we recognize what really does matter. We are witnessing a major change in human perception, and this is our time to stake a claim on behalf of God’s glory. His glory is the truth about ultimate reality against this world of shadows. When we reap the fruit of blessing that comes from living His Law, we shine His glory.
